PT Jim Raynor's "RLM's Episode I - Review A Study in Fanboy Stupidity"

Of course, as Plinkett was designed to satirise nerd rage at the same time as it gave more serious criticism, whilst Raynor's output actually is nerd rage, they aren't exactly equivalent. Mike says elsewhere that many people take such stuff way too seriously, but this and actual criticism are not mutually exclusive, and much of his criticism is film-making based, and of the sort that often appears in his other reviews.

 

I've still only ever watched about ten minutes of the TPM review. From that sample the criticism was weak and the humor grating. Although credit to RLM for becoming entrenched in the "culture" of Star Wars. I think it's pretty pointless to worry about feeding the fire by responding to the reviews. Mostly because what he did in my view is not too far from the Underoo side of the culture.

 

"Icky icky goo!"

 

You can spend 2 hours viewing SW, or viewing the "review" by an envious """"reviewer""""...

 

What happens when the review video is more enjoyable and rewatchable than the film it reviews, though?

 

I would rather watch the movie again than some kind of review on it since I think people are able to form their own opinion on a movie, and not just a Star Wars movie.

If I need to rewatch a review or someone else spending a vast amount of time telling me that a movie is bad before I even realize it, I must be completely lacking in taste, or the movie isn't as bad and catastrophic as the internet keeps yelling about it for almost 20 years...

 

That would be pretty subjective, personally I take a great film made by a great filmmaker over 70 minutes of pure #itching and dishonest tactics by novices that never got anywhere and who produce lazy content. As for Skotsika being a film expert, he films wedding videos, he lists that as service you can hire his company for, when he isn't e-begging. One of their friends named Garrett said he thinks it is funny that people believe Skotsika are actual film experts, he claims they are good comedians but not good filmmakers and that they rely entirely on editing for their comedy (both editing and comedy have long been used as manipulation tools because people psychologically don't want to disagree with persons they find amusing). He also claims Jay hated film school, made films to bad mouth film school, and often fights with and kicks out his actors. Perhaps they missed the lesson on ensembles?

Personally I think all of this comedic angry reviewing is a deeply flawed format and is just a cheap and easy way to make content by riding somebody else's coat tails and using their stuff to pad out your stuff. Angry reviewing is also pretty tired stick now and most of them are sad MST3K wannabes.

 

Oh, but it's so much more than that! It's also a revenge story, and a dark comedy about a geriatric serial killer, and a commentary of merchandising glut, and a Minneapolis slice-of-life retrospective, as well as an enriching parody like when SNL accidentally makes something funny amidst an entire season of meh... I mean, there's just so much going on! It may not be everyone's cup of tea, or rat poison even, but it's certainly entertaining for those with a sense of humor, or in need of a dose of collective schadenfreude.

But sure, attack Stoklasa and gang with your ad hominems /rolleyes. The more you talk about them the more attention they get, and fans of RLM like myself enjoy watching all the squirming, tbh. Seriously, they do make other content, and it's quite good, even if you're just a movie industry nerd (like they are, granted they also went to film school), like their most recent video this week crunching the summer box office numbers and predicting next year's....

I mean, it's no coincidence Box Office can be shorthanded to B.O. Sometimes it's just amusing to read angry ranting like this in small doses:

Lots of #utthurt, I know.

What if I told you it was possible to form your own opinion and weigh it against others' opinions at the same time?!

 

Personally I found the comedy obnoxious, childish, and mindless which seems common for nerd media sites, of course that is just my opinion as comedy is very subjective. Just making your comedy meta doesn't automatically make you Monty Python caliper. The story is besides the point along with the comedy, there is no need of a story in a review, just a cheap gimick that has been ran into the ground. What slice of life, other than a slice of life about failed film student manchildren riding others coattails. There is very little going on, and it is merely a red herring anyway to the faulty reviewing. Just as Jim said, you are using the comedy and story as shielding for critiquing, oh the irony is strong as you keep proving Jim right with your ever more desperate replies.

The story being good or bad has no bearing on the quality or lack there of the review itself. Not just RLM, but other angry reviewers such as AVGN, TGWTG, etc. use stories to pad out and mask what little substance is in their reviews, as well as setting up serials to promote more views of future works. So just drop the red herring, it is getting rather rank. I love the desperation of RLM fans trying to defend their idol and trying to act like internet tough guys when all they reveal is how butthurt they are over any criticism toward their idol. As Encycpedia Dramatica says, RLM are artistic cowards and abject failures in every aspect.

 

Lol, you think my replies are desperate? Or completely serious? I realize sarcasm is hard to read on the internet, but surely you don't think I was being serious when I called it a "slice of life" story, do you? LOL. Oh, man. Flailing, angry, sad. The mirroring is strong in you, but you are not a Jedi yet. Strike me down with all of your hatred. Release your anger!

Can you not tell I am having fun at how uber-serious you're taking this? The desperation in your replies is completely unnecessary. I'm not butthurt in the slightest! Heck, I enjoy regularly making fun of RLM folks on their own boards. It's become its own game over there. You'd get eaten alive on those boards with this level of outrage and self-seriousness. You're just feeding into it, again and again. This conflating of all RLM fans as total devotees worshiping some deity is beyond silly, it's just pathetic, really. Have a Coke and a smile! Watch the PT. Enjoy yourself!

 

So you are flip flopping to save face? Seen it before. The denity stuff is just a lark around here, though some do treat the RLM reviews as a great authority beyond approach.

 

As a fan of their channel, that definitely does not describe me. I do agree with many of the points made in those PT videos, but I also agree with the points made on their Trek ones, and I personally love/hate the TNG Trek films (Nemesis I have the most issues with, though parts are fantastic).

All I'm saying is, one can like a thing and not put it up on a pedestal. Heck I don't even put the OT on a pedestal. Or TFA, and that's become my favorite SW movie despite its flaws! (Though maybe with time ESB will rise to the top again. Or Rogue One might shoot to the top. Or VIII (Rian Johnson is a big plus).

 

Yeah, the whole gimmick aspect is one reason I didn't have much patience for RLM's content. Similarly, I thought Angry Video Game Nerd was funny at first, but after a while the whole deal started to feel way over produced and, like you say, needlessly "story" driven. Haven't watched him in years as a result.

 

Well that is good. I know none of the SW films are perfect, nor do I expected them to be. ANH is my favorite closely followed by TPM.

I have not bothered watching online reviewers in years either. Heard that some have become lolcows themselves.

 

And why should I do that?

Appreciation, dislike and opinions towards movies, as well as any form of art, are all subjective. It's a matter of personal preference. It depends on the way in which you view a movie: you can either see it as a great cinematic work or as a total disaster, it depends if you are exposed to the movies in the right way or the wrong way which can affect your appreciation of the movie.

As I said before, I no longer care if someone else likes or dislikes a movie that I love or hate.

Where things went terribly wrong with these reviews was when some people or embittered fans tried to impose these reviews to others in order to prove that their views of the movies were "wrong". Which is totally unfair since you are only alienating people and fans who grew up and liked the prequels and discovered Star Wars with these movies for the first time...

 

pure and utter unadulterated GOLD!

 

I've always been of the mindset that I just will enjoy whatever films I like, based solely on my own opinion and interpretation of them, and even if the whole world beyond myself hates it, I don't care one tiny bit. I don't need to like what's popular to like in film (or music for that matter), just to fit in. I'm not in 4th grade anymore. That's the great thing about film and music; What they mean to us is all very personal, the way that one can adopt it as their own-whatever an individual can find enjoyable about it (or not). This idea that there are "facts" that can "prove" a movie is bad or good is ridiculous, IMO. It's all purely subjective, it's all personal opinion.

As has been mentioned above, if I'd have to watch a long drawn out analysis (completely biased, BTW) about how horrible the film is just to be able to form my own opinion, then I have bigger problems. I do read reviews occasionally, since sometimes it will help me see certain points of a film in a new way, or explain something I missed, but only ones that are objective and not biased.

I'll be the first to admit the PT is not without issues, but IMO for every bad or "cringeworthy" scene, there are several awesome sequences that make up for it! That's enough for me.

 

Another reason it is nice to have a ready link to this rebuttal is because many PT fans have taken the tactic of simply ignoring whatever Plinkett disciple (and no, that is not too strong a term) is laying the RLM crap-fests on them by way of "proving" that they're wrong. To which the Plinkett disciples typically respond, like the schoolyard bullies they surely once were (and still are, largely), with taunts about how PT fans can't counter any of Plinkett's points, or else smirk about how "there is no rebuttal" to Plinkett. This will serve as a useful retort. For a few years now, PT fans have started to speak up a little more, to stand up for themselves. Something like this can help.

The "ignore" tactic seldom seems to work with bullies, either in schoolyards or online. They just get more extreme in their bullying. And online, they get reinforcements from other bullies who hurry to the scene so they can all high-five each other about how they "pwned" that stupid Lucas-worshipper (although often a more obscene term is used).

 

DARTH_BELO It's really not about fitting in. I was an unabashed nerd before it was cool, and always will be. It's simply a matter of how and why people communicate about any hobby, fandom, etc. And yes, the only opinion in the end that should matter is your own, and no one should have to apologize for liking the PT (or anything else, really).

Oh, get over yourself. Yeesh. I think painting an entire fandom with a broad stroke makes you just as in the muck as those RLM fans who call all PT fans stupid. Find a new tune.

 

I will say that the Plinkett reviews are filled & padded out with nitpicks and minor plot inconsistencies that don't really have any significant bearing on the films. And a lot of these can be countered. It's not really a big deal though because the original points themselves are trivial.

On the other hand, Plinkett's core points are simply a set of opinions which aren't objectively correct or anything....but they also can't really be countered by anything other than "I disagree with that assessment". If anyone really wants to understand his core points, watch these last couple minutes of his ROTS review (this is the original unaltered version....since RLM had to modify it on their official channel to fit with youtube's copyright rules) by clicking here. Here's a quote from it:

That's really the core of the Plinkett reviews. And even I don't agree with it fully. I connected with characters like Obi-Wan in ROTS and found characters like Qui-Gon & Palpatine to be interesting. So I would say I agree with it to a lesser extent than how Plinkett presents it, and that's probably why I like the PT a whole lot less than the OT.

 

Reports of the prequel trilogy's suckiness are greatly exaggerated.

 

So are the rumors, oft-repeated, that the prequels are "dead," having been slain/rendered irrelevant by (insert pet movie series), and that the prequels are both forgettable and forgotten.

Ironically, it's the very same...people who make the above claims, that are the ones ensuring that the prequels neither die nor are forgotten, or all that forgettable. They certainly haven't forgotten the prequels; they're still ranting nonstop about the fart joke in TPM almost 18 years later. And if (insert pet movie series) has killed/rendered the prequels irrelevant, why aren't they at the forums for said pet movies, gushing all over them, instead of at prequel forums, screeching about movies they despise with every fiber of their being?

 

That is part of the problem with his reviews. He frames his opinion as everybody's opinion, such as instead of using I or me, he always uses we. The PT films emotional connected with me and others, while some did not feel the connection, but he and some of his fans try to paint it as if nobody anywhere developed any kind of connection to the pt films or characters. This is known as projecting, projecting your worldview onto others and expecting everyone to have the same view and feelings as you do. Like the widespread belief that TESB is everyones favorite film which of course isn't true. Not everyone likes some or all of the ot characters either, Mike Nelson from MST3K hates Luke, and there are Han haters out there. Again Shoketa is projecting his worldview onto others in his reviews which is one of his largest faults.

 

lol Why does this thread have five pages? I thought PT fans were done taking the RLM reviews seriously about a year or two ago.

 

Ha! You're so right. I can never forget that one. People have been declaring Star Wars to be "dead" since the conclusion of the OT; maybe before that. But it got a bit more obnoxious around the time of the prequels, as now supposed fans started saying it, and then the media latched on. Only, as you say, for it to be a load of empty bravado (fans), or opportunism and dull repeating for clicks/revenue (the media). Both entities have been hypocritically whining about and dining out on the prequels almost as long as Bob Geldof has been prospering from "I Don't Like Mondays".

It is a reasonable question. I remember someone at a board I used to belong to; he was rabidly anti-prequel. But he kept bringing them up, even as he protested that everyone had forgotten about them and he no longer cared. He was eventually called on this, and his only response was, "I think it's going to rain tomorrow". Later, he was called on it again, when he suddenly started hitting on them once more, and then he spewed some nonsense about it being too much fun. This wasn't IMDB, by the way; but there were plenty of personalities like that on there. I'll never forget the one guy who was extremely belittling, all the time, and kept saying he was "done" with Star Wars in its entirety and would never waste another breath on the series ever again. Yet a week later, there'd be another slew of posts by him, belittling people again, all to Star Wars boards. You may remember who I mean. People are utterly obsessed with these movies. Bashers have given them an extraordinary shelf life.

That's one of the fallacies he employs, yes -- one of many. He has also done it in other reviews, like his "Star Trek '09" review, in which he claimed the liveliness of the actors and the realism of the sets, or the clarity of the storytelling or something along those lines, was "everything we did not get in the prequels". At moments like that, the mask seems to slip and the real Stoklasa appears to be talking. The videos seem made for a particular or presumed audience. Glib and satirical, perhaps; but conveniently pitched in such a way that Stoklasa made sure it was people dissatisfied with the prequels that grabbed onto them most strongly as some kind of delayed collective therapy.

Yeah, I know, it is a bit ridiculous. But then, so is almost everything surrounding these reviews.